


The New  Boy

by rabidsamfan



Category: Green Knowe Series - Lucy M. Boston
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28138128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidsamfan/pseuds/rabidsamfan
Summary: Toby, Alexander and Linnet have much to consider when a new child comes to Green Knowe
Comments: 17
Kudos: 28
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	1. Toby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phantomlistener](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomlistener/gifts).



It was Linnet who noticed the new boy first, of course. It had always been Linnet who noticed  _ the others  _ first, even when she was in leading strings, and Toby could only wonder who she was babbling at from her cradle. He shared a shrug with Alexander and waited for details. The floods had chased them out from under the yew tree, up to the high attics where they could listen to the rataplan of the rain against the tiles and watch for any leaks which might need more intervention than they could manage in whichever year this happened to be. 

“He’s little, like me,” Linnet sang at them, bouncing so that she could watch her skirts fluffing up and down. 

“They’re always little,” Alexander observed. “At least the ones who notice.” He’d perched on a corner of the chimney stack to read his book, gleefully aware that dust and soot could no longer spoil his best clothes, nor sift down into his hair. The will o’ the wisp light at his shoulder bobbed agreement, sending the shadows dancing across the rafters.

Linnet paused in her bouncing, small forehead furrowing briefly. “I don’t know if he’ll notice or not,” she admitted. “Boggis brought in a box for him with a name on it, but the name isn’t Oldknow.”

“Not Oldknow?” Toby paid more attention, trying to think who the new child might be. “Does he look like an Oldknow?”

“Oh, yes,” Linnet twirled around, her concerns forgotten. “Granny calls him Tolly. He’s a Toseland, like you.”

Toby relaxed. “That’s all right then.” Toby knew, even if Linnet didn’t seem to, that few of the Oldknow sons escaped Old Petronella’s curse long enough to have sons themselves. The daughters had fared better. The family name wasn’t the only way to remember the family, and Toby thought that another Toseland was likely to be friendly. 

“Does she like him?” Alexander asked, “Can you tell? Or is it too soon?”

“I think she does.” Linnet cocked her head like a chaffinch eyeing a bit of bread. “She gave him cake.”

“She gives everyone cake,” Alexander said, closing his book carefully before sliding down the stack. Toby had never explored these spaces in what he carefully thought of as Before, the attics beyond their bedroom being the province of chimney sweeps, servants, bats, and mice, But Alexander had led the way confidently when Granny (one of the Grannies at least) had fretted about the roof leaking, and was as comfortable up here as Toby was in the stables. (Which did leak of late, not that either Toby or Feste minded.) “That doesn’t tell us what he’s like.”

Linnet skipped across the dusty rafters to Toby, and caught his hands, tugging him towards the panel that led to the finished part of the attics. “Dark hair and eyes, and thin-faced, like he’s not had cake in far too long. But he has a nice smile, when he smiles.” She beamed up at Toby and he smiled back, unable to be stern with her when she was so merry, even if he wasn’t going to let her pull him along like a recalcitrant kite. “Do you think he’ll like us?”

“That depends on whether or not he can see or hear us,” Alexander said, coming over to join them. His book had vanished as soon as he put it down, which meant that Toby wouldn’t have to listen to him construe for the rest of the night. The  _ Aeneid _ was glorious in Latin, but Alexander’s attempts to translate the story into English poetry never did get much farther along without any means to write down each new passage. Which was probably why Linnet had wandered off to see what Granny was doing and discovered the new boy.

“Where is he now?” Toby asked her, although it was late enough he could guess.

“Gone to sleep,” Linnet wrinkled up her nose and bit back a yawn. “His bed is where yours ought to be.”

“That’s all right, I’ll stay with Feste.”

“You always want to stay with Feste,” Alexander observed, and Toby shrugged, unable to explain how much realer he felt when he was with his horse. Luckily, Alexander didn’t seem to mind taking care of Linnet. He pulled her away from Toby now, and straightened her ribbons. “If it’s his bedtime, it’s yours too,” he told her.

“Good,” Linnet decided, letting her day clothes fade into her nightclothes. “I can watch all night,” she said, but then she yawned, and yawned again, and it was all Toby could do not to yawn or laugh. “Or maybe sleep,” she conceded.

“Don’t forget your prayers,” Toby told her, and at the words he lost track of himself, as all the times he had ever said those words came crashing in, spinning him through the years. For a brief moment he could smell the rain, and the musty evidence of the bats rustling under the gabled roof. Summer heat and winter chill flickered around him, like candles guttering. He made an effort to remember where he’d been. “Alexander...”

“I know, I know,” came his little brother’s reassurance through the silent cacophony of the centuries. “I’ll mind her. You see to Feste. He’s calling you, you know.”

And there was the trumpet call of his horse, demanding his presence. Toby closed his eyes, and was himself again, safe in the stable, with his Feste nudging at his shoulder. He put up his arms around the warm neck, listening to Bucephalus whickering in the next stall over, inhaling the sweet rich smell of straw and horse and the pomade his mother had made him put in his hair for the sake of the portrait artist from Holland, and he knew himself to be home, the dream of children and adventures yet to come already sifting out of memory. He hugged Feste a bit tighter, “You’ll always be with me, Feste,” he promised. “I’m sure of it.”


	2. Alexander

Alexander, if he tried, could almost always tell when he was, although he wasn’t sure that Toby could, and was quite positive that Linnet didn’t even have to try. And he was usually sure of which of the generations he was dealing with But he had to take a second look when the morning came. Looked like an Oldknow, Linnet had said, but not that the boy looked enough like the oldest of  _ the others _ to be a younger brother. Alexander wondered whether cousin Roger had simply discovered another way to come home. Not everyone had a portrait to remind them of who they were.

He watched Granny bring the new boy out to the edge of the garden to meet the birds, with his hands covered over and spread wide in invitation. Never had Alexander wanted to know more about margarine! But he’d settle for knowing more about this new boy. His hair was too short, and so were his trousers, displaying bare knees that were reddened by the cold. But the thin face was eager and expressive, and there was a core of determination that Alexander appreciated, even if he had to laugh when Tolly screwed up his face to keep from moving while the birds tickled him. 

Tolly’s eyes flew open and he looked around, quite as if he’d heard Alexander laughing. A promising sign, if ever there was, and his torrent of questions about the portrait were too. But Alexander still had ever so many questions, so when Tolly clattered upstairs to play in the bedroom, with Linnet trailing along behind, Alexander stayed with Granny, and followed her out to the kitchen with the washing up.

“Granny,” he said, when she began to dry the cups. “Tell me about Tolly. Why isn’t his name Oldknow? He looks like an Oldknow.”

“He is an Oldknow,” she said comfortably. “His mother was my grand-daughter Linnet.”

Alexander counted Linnets in his head to be sure he knew which one that was. “But why hasn’t he always been here, then? I don’t remember him as a baby.”

“Tolly was born aboard a ship at sea. His mother married a soldier, and after the war she followed him to the places he was sent. When his time in the Army was done they were in the Far East, and they decided to stay and help refugees. But Linnet died in an accident, and Tolly’s father didn’t know what to do without her, I think. He remarried, and it was decided to send Tolly back to England on an airplane so he could attend a boarding school. He spent his holidays there until I heard the news, so I invited him here.” She set the last plate into its place on the shelf and turned to smile at Alexander. “Do you mind him coming?”

Alexander shook his head. “No, I like it when there are children here. But I don’t know if he understands enough about Green Knowe to ... well, to _ belong _ here. Not if he was born far away.”

Granny nodded her understanding, but her eyes were twinkling. “I wasn’t born here either, you know. I was born in Cornwall. But as for understanding, he’s full of questions, and I am here to telI him all the stories he ought to know. And as for belonging, well, we’ll have to wait and see,” she said. But then she cocked her head and held up a hand, a smile blooming over her face. “Although we may not need to wait long. Listen. Do you hear?”

From the top of the house came a high, clear voice, singing. Alexander looked up, his mouth falling open. It wasn’t Linnet. Alexander knew her voice. This was a childish voice, untrained, yet every note was pitch perfect. He didn’t know the song, but by the way it was repeating itself, he soon would. 

_ Two, two, the lily white boys, clothed all in green - oh. _

_ One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so! _

Alexander let himself be drawn up, toward the music, the feel of his flute in his hand as if it had never gone. Behind him he heard the Grandmother chuckling with delight. “Belong indeed,” she said, in a dozen different voices, running back through the years. “As if we’d send him away!”


	3. Linnet

All the first day, while Tolly played pretend with the rocking horse, and went to the stables with Boggis, Linnet watched and waited impatiently for him to  _ notice _ . He saw the chaffinch, and found Feste’s name-board, and he clearly loved the portrait that Mother had made them all pose for, asking question after question of Granny before it was time for bed. But it wasn’t until he was in the bed, and nearly asleep that he heard Linnet and Alexander getting ready for bed. He must have done, for he called to her to come out, and even if he didn’t see her try to, he went to sleep with a smile.

The next day the floods were gone. Tolly could explore the gardens at last, and so he did, singing unawares as he played with the pebbles at St. Christopher’s feet, or traced the paths. The birds followed the music, and so did Linnet, till they all came to the Green Deer, where Toby and Alexander were playing catch as catch can through the bushes. Linnet joined them, and then spun with delight when Tolly began to run too, startling Watt so much he darted across the grass. “He hears us! Alexander, Toby!” Linnet danced past Tolly, laughing all the harder when he turned and followed her down to the platform by the moat.

Linnet’s favorite game was hide and seek. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t liked it, not even when she was small, and the people she was playing with were quite invisible to her. And now that she could be invisible, she loved the game even more. When Tolly called for the Green Deer to be “den” she knew he was going to be one of the best playmates ever. Especially once he learned to see properly. She ran with him, back to the deer, but he was faster and she was so out of breath her laughter came out funny and made her want to laugh harder. Toby gave her a piece of yew shaped like a T for Tolly to find, but Linnet dropped it on Tolly’s head to encourage him to keep playing. Sometimes people were frightened by a gift like that, and then they didn’t want to play anymore. But Tolly wasn’t. He held tight to the T as he ran back to St. Christopher and Granny who was out cutting flowers.

Toby leaned against the wall beside her, putting away the knife he’d used to cut the twig. “What would you have done if he screamed?” he asked.

Linnet gave her brother a scornful look, “If I thought he would scream, I wouldn't have given him anything.”

“Yes you would.” Alexander joined them. “I remember the frogs you gave to Nanny Softly.”

“She didn’t scream, she  _ squeaked _ ,” Linnet giggled. She remembered too. “And then she flapped her apron like she was trying to shoo ducks! I’m not a duck!”

“No, you’re a silly goose,” Toby teased her. 

Linnet tried to scowl at him, but she was too happy to manage it. “Do you like him, Toby? He left some sugar for Feste. And he likes music, like you, Alexander, so that’s good. And he likes hide and seek like me, so that’s three things that are good. Do you like him?”

“And what would you say if I told you no?” Toby said.

“I’d say you were being rude. He is family after all. And he  _ notices _ .” Being family wasn’t always a guarantee, but noticing was practically a requirement, as far as who Linnet thought was worthy of politeness.

Toby held out his hands for her and Alexander. “I say we go and tell Mother about him,” he said. 

Linnet sighed. “Do we have to? He’ll be lonely without us.”

Alexander took her other hand, so they made a circle. “Chaffie can keep him company,” he told her. “And we’ll come back. We know the way.”

Linnet wasn’t entirely sure that either of her brothers really did know the way to and from Heaven. It was always easier for them when she came too. Otherwise, Alexander would get distracted by someone singing somewhere in time, and Toby would always find his way back to Feste’s stall in the Before Time. The Grandmothers sat in Granny’s chair with her sometimes, but Mother never had done more than watch from a distance.. 

Suddenly, Linnet did want to go to heaven. “Tolly’s sure to ask for another bedtime story,” she said. “And perhaps this time Mother will come back and visit with us. Just for a bit. Just to listen.” 

“Perhaps,” Toby said. “We can ask.”

“Yes,” Alexander said. “But we’d best go if we want to be back in time ourselves.”

“All right.” Linnet closed her eyes and took a step forward, feeling the golden path rise up beneath her feet.” “But only until story time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I loved going back to this series, and for my recipient, who has only read the first book, I heartily recommend the rest.


End file.
